Outstandingly fun RTS from the year 2000 that works well thanks to Nightdive Studios' work. Besides the very inventive and fun gameplay, I absolutely love the story, and I'll be focusing on that (in a non-spoiler way).
The [b]story[/b] is utterly amazing. Besides Homeworld 1, this is the best-conceived story I've seen in an RTS.
It's a coming-of-age story in a brutal war. It starts off, in the intro, as very puerile - as is appropriate for the 3 young, dumb hotshots who are the protagonists; but, if you follow the campaign, you'll see the story mature alongside the protagonists.
The ending is a stroke of genius. I absolutely love it. I won't say anything specific, except that it reminds me of some of Larry Niven's stories.
The [b]gameplay[/b] is very fun and inventive. Giant mechs fighting each other, supported by a full array of base buildings and vehicles - which are weaker, but still impactful.
The maps have 3 layers - surface, where you can have buildings, mechs, vehicles and aircraft; underground, where only buildings and vehicles go, but mechs are too tall to fit; and orbit, where the build area is very limited, and aircraft reign. Resource generation also varies - underground has plentiful magma lakes you can harvest, the surface has smaller lava pools, but solar panels work, while the orbit has very strong solar power generation.
The mechs are divided into torso, legs, right arm, left arm, and crew. The parts have some pretty wild abilities - from rockets and laser swords to large area cloaking devices and jetpacks. The three factions are very different, both in accessible parts and armour types. Capturing and researching enemy parts is a big part of the game; you can do wild things like shear a high-tech arm from an enemy with your laser sword, drop your own arm, grab and affix the sheared arm, and run back to base to research and mass-produce it. There are also superweapons, like the neutron bomb, which kills the crews of heavily-damaged mechs. So, you can have the crew of your own mech get out and capture an enemy mech whole-sale.
In short, the gameplay is outrageously inventive, reactive, and fun. The controls are a bit aged in 2025, but not infuriatingly bad. I guess my biggest frustration is that the orbital building grid doesn't quite match the visual layout, leading to slight pixel-hunting.
There are some [b]technical issues[/b]. While the game works fine out of the box, the movies don't play (I'm playing on Linux, Proton default settings). If you stumble on this issue, you can try to install the old Indeo codecs - or, simpler, manually play the .avi videos, VLC works. They're in the TBD directory: Opening and Finale are self-explanatory: the first and last videos in the story; after each campaign, in order, you have the XClosing, YClosing and ZClosing.avi vids. So: Opening, X, Y, Z, Finale.
For making sure the game preserves resolution after Alt-Tabbing, I changed the following nGlide settings:
[list]
[*] Video backend: Vulkan worked for me, but choose whatever works
[*] Screen resolution: actual monitor resolution, like 1920x1080
[*] Aspect ratio: Preserve Original (so you don't get a stretched screen)
[/list]
So, [b]in conclusion[/b], it works pretty well despite some slight technical issues, the gameplay is a bit awkward but more than makes up for it in sheer creativity and fun, and I am in love with the story, especially how it progresses and ends.
